Environmental Scan and Internal Data (continued)

Another way of looking at the costs of different job categories is presented in Figure 7. The greatest allocation of NSF (base) funding in FY08 was to ladder scientists (36%), software engineers (21%), engineers (7%), and project scientists (6%).

Figure 7: NSF base-funded staff costs in FY08.

One of the most important roles for NCAR is to interact and collaborate with the community, particularly the university community, through its various visitors programs. Figures 6 and 7 show a small amount of NSF base and other funds for paid visitors, and this low level of funding is of some concern. However, these figures do not provide a complete picture of the number of external visitors at NCAR. Figure 8 provides a breakdown of paid visitors and those that are and are not provided financial support (e.g., travel and per diem). NCAR provides at least some financial support for 40% of our visitors.